Top ten things culinary school tought me

Having just finished up a four-month culinary course, I thought I’d share some of the best kernels of knowledge I’ve acquired before I forget them myself.

What follows is ten different concepts, tricks or just plain sense that culinary school has taught me so far:

Number Ten: Mis en place. For chefs, this means having an organized kitchen after five hours of non-stop action. For lay people this means finally doing that major cleaning and overhaul of your kitchen’s utensils, spices and food so that you know where everything is. The desired results are the same. When a culinary emergency arises, say a pie needs to come out of the oven now!, you’re not frantically opening up drawers looking for the one with the oven mitt in it. It’s all about making cooking go smoothly.

Number Nine: Ignore meat thermometers. There are better ways to

accurately judge the doneness of meat, without resorting to the amateur

way of cutting into it or trying to use a thermometer. My

teacher at one point said to throw out your meat thermometers because you’ll only ruin the meat by using them.

It’s all about the touch and how much give

a steak or a chicken has when you touch it. Next time you’re grilling,

try it — you’ll notice the meat is firm and doesn’t have much give when

done.